The Red Book Of Animal Stories - online children's book

Stories of Animals, Fantastic and Mundane, Edited By Andrew Lang

declares it ' was better to the eye than to the stomach.' The last Dodo was seen in 1681.

When we visit a zoological gardens, it is impossible not to be struck with the fact that certain of the animals that we are looking at seem strange to our minds, as if they had come from a world of which we know nothing, and belonged to a state of life we could never understand. We may be gazing at all the beasts equally for the first time, but we know exactly what to make of a lion, a puma, or a zebra; while an elephant, a rhinoceros, or a

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kangaroo, fills us with thoughts that we can hardly explain even to ourselves.

Now, perhaps these vague feelings arise from these creatures really representing the life of such ages ago that nobody can even venture to guess at a date. As will be seen, from the short account given above, of animals that are now extinct, they none of them were exactly like the beasts and birds to be met with now, but they were like enough to them to show that they belonged to the same race. We all have felt a curious sensation when we have met an old gentleman or lady who persists in